S.F. tenants don't trust city's motives

SAN FRANCISCO Hunters View residents skeptical of motives for emptying decrepit housing development

###Live Caption:Mayor Gavin Newsom speaks to Hunter's View community members, on Wednesday, Mar. 5, 2008 in San Francisco, Calif., about a new plan to help public housing residents get out from under ever growing back rent payments. Photo by Mike Kepka / San Francisco Chronicle###Caption History:Mayor Gavin Newsom speaks to Hunter's View community members, on Wednesday, Mar. 5, 2008 in San Francisco, Calif., about a new plan to help public housing residents get out from under ever growing back rent payments. Photo by Mike Kepka / San Francisco Chronicle###Notes:(cq)###Special Instructions:MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/NO SALES-MAGS OUT less

###Live Caption:Mayor Gavin Newsom speaks to Hunter's View community members, on Wednesday, Mar. 5, 2008 in San Francisco, Calif., about a new plan to help public housing residents get out from under ever ... more

Photo: Mike Kepka

Photo: Mike Kepka

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###Live Caption:Mayor Gavin Newsom speaks to Hunter's View community members, on Wednesday, Mar. 5, 2008 in San Francisco, Calif., about a new plan to help public housing residents get out from under ever growing back rent payments. Photo by Mike Kepka / San Francisco Chronicle###Caption History:Mayor Gavin Newsom speaks to Hunter's View community members, on Wednesday, Mar. 5, 2008 in San Francisco, Calif., about a new plan to help public housing residents get out from under ever growing back rent payments. Photo by Mike Kepka / San Francisco Chronicle###Notes:(cq)###Special Instructions:MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/NO SALES-MAGS OUT less

###Live Caption:Mayor Gavin Newsom speaks to Hunter's View community members, on Wednesday, Mar. 5, 2008 in San Francisco, Calif., about a new plan to help public housing residents get out from under ever ... more

Photo: Mike Kepka

S.F. tenants don't trust city's motives

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Every week in her notorious public housing development, Darlene Fleming watches another neighbor move out and construction crews come in to nail plywood over the vacant apartment's doors and windows. And every week, she says, more residents get eviction notices, possibly signaling that they could be the next ones forced out.

Of the 267 units at Hunters View, 110 are boarded up. Just 157 families remain at the violent and dilapidated development in San Francisco's Hunters Point neighborhood and 116 of them are in danger of eviction because they're behind on their rent or for other reasons.

It's just what many residents feared when city officials said their development would be the first in line for a complete rebuild that would include hundreds of new, market-rate homes built among the subsidized units.

"They're finding all kinds of reasons to put us out of here," said Fleming, a 60-year-old great-grandmother who has lived in Hunters View since she was 9 and whose eviction case is winding its way through Superior Court. "The less of us they have here, the less they have to deal with."

Mayor Gavin Newsom visited Hunters View on Wednesday to assure the residents - many of whom remember their friends and family being bulldozed out of the Western Addition in the 1960s in the name of urban renewal - that the city wants them to stay through the redevelopment process and beyond.

He announced a new program in which a variety of city agencies will team with advocacy groups, Bay Area Legal Aid and the Bar Association of San Francisco to help residents behind in their rent enroll in a payment plan to clear their record and remain eligible to live in the new development.

"We cannot repeat the mistakes that were made in the Western Addition a generation or so ago," he said. "You could come in with a bulldozer and tear everything down and make all these promises, walk away, rebuild it, everybody's gone - and you've got a whole white population that looks like me.

"To do it right, you've got to be smart about it," he said. "You've got to be thoughtful."

The San Francisco Housing Authority, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, owns 53 public housing developments, including Hunters View, that contain 6,360 apartments occupied by about 12,000 low-income tenants.

Eight of those developments - comprised of 2,500 units - are so decrepit they need to be rebuilt, but federal funds for those projects have dwindled in recent years. Newsom has come up with a city initiative, called Hope SF, to rebuild them using a mix of city and private money.

John Stewart Co., which has rebuilt other public housing developments in the city, is redeveloping Hunters View, with groundbreaking scheduled for next year.

The company and the city pledge that all 267 public housing units will be rebuilt along with 90 affordable housing rental units and more than 300 market-rate homes expected to be priced between $600,000 and $800,000.

Just bad timing

Mirian Saez, the Newsom-appointed interim director of the Housing Authority, said it was just bad timing that eviction notices began spiking at the same time the redevelopment plans were taking shape.

She said the Housing Authority, under its previous director who left in January, was far behind in following up on unpaid rent. A new lawyer at the Housing Authority began dealing with the back-up and scores of eviction notices were sent.

"We want to keep people in the community - we want them participating in Hope SF in a real way," Saez said. "This is our first step in trying to keep the community intact. We have to win their trust."

Depending on their monthly income and other factors, residents at Hunters View pay varying amounts to the Housing Authority, ranging from nothing to $1,200 a month in one case. Most pay between $100 and $400 a month. Cumulatively, the tenants at Hunters View owe $200,000 in back rent, according to the authority.

Tenants, advocacy groups and the city say a lot of the problem was due to the Housing Authority's confusing, arbitrary way of running things. According to Saez, a recent city audit of tenant files at Hunters View found 30 percent of the rent calculations were inaccurate.

Under the city's new program, advocacy and legal groups will help residents determine what their rent should be and set up a two-year plan to pay down their debt in monthly installments. If someone owes so much they cannot afford to pay off their debt, it may be forgiven.

Those who don't participate or who don't follow through with their payment plans risk losing their eligibility to live in the new development.

A similar plan is expected to be established at Alice Griffith, the public hosing development near Candlestick Park that would be rebuilt by Lennar Corp. if voters approve a June ballot measure giving the Miami construction company the rights to redevelop large swaths of Bayview-Hunters Point.

Mayor's motive questioned

Sara Shortt, director of the Housing Rights Committee, a tenant advocacy group, praised the city's plan to get Hunters View residents up-to-date on their rent, but also questioned the mayor's motive.

"The city is stepping in and cleaning up the mess the Housing Authority has created, and that's a really positive thing," she said. "But at the same time, I think the mayor's working to prevent the political backlash that would occur if a flood of residents were evicted at the very first Hope SF project."

The plan won't help everybody at Hunters View who's in danger of eviction. Darlene Fleming, who has lived in the development for 51 years, said she was served an eviction notice by sheriff's deputies when she was recuperating from heart problems at San Francisco General Hospital last July.

Her case isn't about rent, but about the fact that her grandson was on the lease of her apartment and later arrested for possessing drugs. Saez said she would talk to the development's tenants association about eviction cases unrelated to rent.

"Every week, one or two families is being put out," Fleming said. "They're trying to get rid of us. That's what everybody thinks."

Eviction help

Public housing residents in San Francisco who are in jeopardy of being evicted can call Bay Area Legal Aid, working in conjunction with the Housing Rights Committee, at (415) 354-6353.